Bucket conveyor systems are frequently employed for handling of particulate material or the like, including movement of such material between vertically spaced locations. In such a system, a plurality of individual buckets are typically mounted on one or more conveyor chains, or like elements, with the chains guided and driven about sprockets or like guide elements to move the buckets along the desired path. The buckets are typically pivotally connected to each of the conveyor chains, and thus are configured to remain in a substantially upright orientation as the buckets are moved horizontally or vertically with the conveyor chains. Such arrangements are well-suited to handling of particulate materials, which materials can be introduced into the buckets at an infeed station, and discharged from the buckets at a discharge station, typically by effecting inversion of the buckets at the discharge station.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,433 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,933 disclosed heretofore known bucket conveyor systems, with these patents hereby being incorporated by reference.
Because the buckets of a typical bucket conveyor system are configured to pivot relative to the one or more associated conveyor chains as the buckets are moved along the conveying path, the buckets are typically positioned in spaced apart relationship to each other along the length of the conveyor chains thereby assuring that the buckets do not interfere with one another as they pivot relative to the conveyor chains. However, this necessary spacing detracts from efficient filling of the buckets since material can spill between the relatively spaced buckets during filling.
The present invention contemplates an arrangement for facilitating filling of buckets of a bucket conveyor apparatus by selectively relatively reducing the spacing between the buckets at an infeed station of the apparatus.